White Lies | Page 8

to take a little stroll to relieve the cares of
administration. He imprinted on his beardless face the expression of a
wearied statesman, and strolled through an admiring village. The men
pretended veneration from policy; the women, whose views of this

great man were shallower but more sincere, smiled approval of his airs;
and the young puppy affected to take no notice of either sex.
Outside the village, Publicola suddenly encountered two young ladies,
who resembled nothing he had hitherto met with in his district; they
were dressed in black, and with extreme simplicity; but their easy grace
and composure, and the refined sentiment of their gentle faces, told at a
glance they belonged to the high nobility. Publicola divined them at
once, and involuntarily raised his hat to so much beauty and dignity,
instead of poking it with a finger as usual. On this the ladies instantly
courtesied to him after the manner of their party, with a sweep and a
majesty, and a precision of politeness, that the pup would have laughed
at if he had heard of it; but seeing it done, and well done, and by lovely
women of rank, he was taken aback by it, and lifted his hat again, and
bowed again after he had gone by, and was generally flustered. In short,
instead of a member of the Consular Government saluting private
individuals of a decayed party that existed only by sufferance, a
handsome, vain, good-natured boy had met two self- possessed young
ladies of distinction and breeding, and had cut the usual figure.
For the next hundred yards his cheeks burned and his vanity cooled.
But bumptiousness is elastic in France, as in England, and doubtless
among the Esquimaux. "Well, they are pretty girls," says he to himself.
"I never saw two such pretty girls together; they will do for me to flirt
with while I am banished to this Arcadia." Banished from school, I beg
to observe.
And "awful beauty" being no longer in sight, Mr. Edouard resolved he
would flirt with them to their hearts' content. But there are ladies with
whom a certain preliminary is required before you can flirt with them.
You must be on speaking terms. How was this to be managed?
He used to watch at his window with a telescope, and whenever the
sisters came out of their own grounds, which unfortunately was not
above twice a week, he would throw himself in their way by the merest
accident, and pay them a dignified and courteous salute, which he had
carefully got up before a mirror in the privacy of his own chamber.
One day, as he took off his hat to the young ladies, there broke from
one of them a smile, so sudden, sweet, and vivid, that he seemed to feel
it smite him first on the eyes then in the heart. He could not sleep for
this smile.

Yet he had seen many smilers; but to be sure most of them smiled
without effect, because they smiled eternally; they seemed cast with
their mouths open, and their pretty teeth forever in sight; and this has a
saddening influence on a man of sense--when it has any. But here a fair,
pensive face had brightened at sight of him; a lovely countenance, on
which circumstances, not nature, had impressed gravity, had sprung
back to its natural gayety for a moment, and had thrilled and bewitched
the beholder.
The next Sunday he went to church--and there worshipped--whom?
Cupid. He smarted for his heathenism; for the young ladies went with
higher motives, and took no notice of him. They lowered their long
silken lashes over one breviary, and scarcely observed the handsome
citizen. Meantime he, contemplating their pious beauty with earthly
eyes, was drinking long draughts of intoxicating passion. And when
after the service they each took an arm of Dr. Aubertin, and he with the
air of an admiral convoying two ships choke-full of specie, conducted
his precious charge away home, our young citizen felt jealous, and all
but hated the worthy doctor.
This went on till he became listless and dejected on the days he did not
see them. Then he asked himself whether he was not a cowardly fool to
keep at such a distance. After all he was a man in authority. His
friendship was not to be despised, least of all by a family suspected of
disaffection to the state.
He put on his glossy beaver with enormous brim, high curved; his blue
coat with brass buttons; his white waistcoat, gray breeches, and
top-boots; and marched up to the chateau of Beaurepaire, and sent in
his card with his name and office inscribed.
Jacintha took it, bestowed a glance of undisguised admiration on the
young Adonis, and carried it to the baroness.